Category: Reviews

This is a short novel. It follows the adventures of an imperial surveyor on a world with bronze-age technology, now being terrorized by another interstellar power. It is evidently the first of her Hainish cycle of stories. It was first published in 1966. My copy is an original Ace paperback from that time.

As usual, any significant spoilers will be put in parentheses (like this).

Events from a half-century ago bring Rocannon the surveyor to the unnamed planet to study its people. He settles in with the descendants of a woman he met that half-century ago that left an impression on him – his life having been extended by being suspended in multiple interstellar voyages. The nearest planet from the League of All Worlds is 8 years away.

After having been on the planet a short time and befriended some of the natives – an apparent feudal-like warrior culture – his team and their ship are destroyed, along with several other native settlements. So he sets of on a quest to a remote area of the planet to get to the base of the enemy, and send a message out to the League.

The journey is what would be today considered a fairly typical quest storyline, involving long travels and misfortunes and encounters with mysterious figures and races. It is solid storytelling, and it can be read in a single sitting, though I broke it up into a chapter each night, so about a week it took me.

Nothing is particularly groundbreaking here. There are some observations on race and class and heroism. None of the mysterious beings encountered are particularly explained, but that does not detract from the story.

There is a pervading sense of sadness, and impending doom for some characters. Even the hope is tinged with gloom. I didn’t feel this detracted from the read, though.

Everything is sketched broadly, from the native cultures to the interstellar civilization. The League, and their nemesis in the book which constitute the enemies, are ill-defined. So is the technology that requires years of sub-light travel, but instantaneous communication and missile/weapon strikes. In fact, the “ansible” – the device that made instantaneous interstellar communication possible – was first used as a device here and has since been used in wider science fiction.

I think I remember the author scoffing at grouping the Hainish novels as a tight vision. Some of the other works in the series include The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Word For World is Forest. I read the last of these titles in college, many moons ago. I remember its characterization of the interstellar League to be similarly sketchy. This is not really a weakness, as these entities affect the story just as needed.

One other thing I want to touch on is the quality of the prose, which is very good. Writing of this nature is a lost art. Sometimes it is difficult to know what she is saying, and a few passages I had to re-read to understand the action or whatever was being conveyed. I think this is a good thing. There is no extra verbiage to fill things out. What needs to be said is said in an artful way. This can sometimes lead to a certain distance between the reader and the story that modern readers may not relate to. The writing is certainly not a visceral as the better of modern authors, but that is not a bad thing.

Overall, a good read. This is essentially a high fantasy book, or science fantasy, though such distinctions don’t really matter. I recommend it.

Been a long time since I posted, blah, blah, blah.

I had been wanting this book for a few years, since it was first announced. This is an anthology of new Sword and Planet stories. It went through a phase of developmental hell before finally reaching daylight sometime last year. Picked it up around Christmas and finally got a chance to read it.

Overall, it’s pretty good. I like the concept better than any of the actual stories, so the sum is greater than its individual parts. Essentially, there was at one time in the past a great Empire of Sol that spanned our Solar system. These stories take place in the remnants of that Lost Empire, one on each planet (including one on the planet that became the Asteroid Belt).

There is a certain air of disjointedness to the collection that may be a reflection of the changing editorial situation, or simply the looser editorial framework. It is not as tight as the Thieves’ World books, for instance, where the stories (for the most part) all fit together. These tales are largely independent of each other and the concept as a whole.

Anyway, to bring myself back up to speed as a blogger, this review will be short and sweet. As before, any major spoilers will be in parentheses (like this).

There is a forward describing how the concept originated and developed by one of the editors. This is followed by an introduction by John O’Neill of Black Gate fame. Both are solid and set up background and expectations.

There is a prologue and a later epilogue that serve as framing devices for the stories. A great world-devouring entity (think Vger from the first Star Trek motion picture) enters the edge of our solar system where it encounters an old space station. The Emissary, who runs and/or monitors the Leviathan, reconstitutes the station’s captain to extract memories from her. He is intrigued to discover that the station was here awaiting the Leviathan’s arrival. The following stories are essentially memories of events from the long-dead captain.

Pretty cool set up. Drawn in right off the bat.

The first story is “To Save Hermesia” by Joe Bonadonna and David C. Smith. Hermesia is Mercury, and the technology that made it livable in the earlier Empire of Sol era is breaking down. The heroine, a stout warrior, must travel with a sage to a lost facility and hope they can get a message off to anyone of the Empire still alive and in power, hoping to restore the dying world. The story’s pretty good, with solid action and plotting. Tense until the end. A nice start.

This is followed by “The Lost Princess of Themos” by Tom Doolan. Themos is Venus; we are going outward from the Sun with each story. A princess survives the destruction of the airship she was on, and encounters some terrors trying to survive. She is saved and befriended by a kind of native giant. He has been sent to meet her, for there is a peril she is the key to stopping. The writing features some interesting telepathic contact, presented in a unique way. A decent story.

Next is “What Really Happened at the Center of the Earth” by Christopher M. Blanchard. The story is essentially an interrogation of a survivor of an expedition to locate lost technology from the lost Empire of Sol. I like the adaption of the classic Hollow Earth trope, which embraces the pulp roots of the Sword and Planet genre, as does the use of Atlantis. There was some decent action and nice reveals. The frame of it being a retelling of events seemed to lessen its intensity for me, though.

Then comes “A Sand-Ship of Mars” by Charles Allen Gramlich. An all-woman crew of a trading sand-ship encounter an oddity from the stars. The description of the sand-ship and how it functioned was kinda hand-waved, so it was hard for me to visualize the story as it unfolded. The hull is described as frictionless, but whether from substance or magic is not told. One of the few descriptions of the ship says it is broad-bottomed, but more wetted surface of a hull causes more drag and therefore friction, so being a sailor this made me inherently more critical here. The ending was bit too convenient. But I liked the enemy and the pressure on the heroine. A good but flawed story.

Howard Andrew Jones wrote the next story, “Whispers of the Serpent.” This takes place on Tharsia, the planet followed too closely by a sister planet, and the eventual asteroid belt. This starts of with the heroine and her companion crashing their ship and reviving (10,000 years in the future). Despite the time gap, the being they originally were going to save is still in contact with them. There are several Jonesian twists in this one, and the usual solid action and pacing. A strong story.

After this is “Outcasts of Jov” by Mark Finn. This opens up with a battle between royal airships and sky pirates. The daughter of the general who was going to become the ruler of Jov (Jupiter) survives, and is rescued by different pirates, who see an opportunity. The central viewpoint continually switches between the characters in the story, and it becomes a comedy. The mystery of the Red Spot is addressed, but there is a nonsensical aspect (as there is a secret society within it, which no one on Jov knows about, but evidently some of the societies on Jov’s moons know about and interact with, but this is somehow kept secret from everyone on Jov?). Not a fan of this one, but humor is subjective.

Next up is “Written in Lightning” by Keith J. Taylor. It starts of in catacombs on Themos before going through an old imperial gate to Cronesh (Saturn). This story really makes an effort to present the planet as a unique environment, more than any of the other stories, which I really liked. There is an intriguing bit of mystery, but the story fizzles out after an anti-climactic scene in which nothing that is built up is resolved. The story ends with the pair of heroes – a male thief/pilot and a female warrior – realizing they are here on Cronesh to stay, which is supposed to carry great weight. But nothing that the words and actions of their hosts on the planet is building toward is even attempted to be resolved. I love the world building, but it’s ultimately disappointing.

“Survivors of Ulthula” by E.E. Knight is next. The planet of Ulthula (Uranus) is incidental to the story, simply a refuelling place. Instead, it takes place aboard a couple of spaceships between the planets, and involves a lost ship and more space pirates. A decent story, featuring a bit of gruesome medical horror, but only tenuously Sword and Planet. Nice shout-out to Alien at the end as the survivors make a log entry.

After this is “Hunters of Ice and Sky” by David A. Hardy, taking place on Neptune. There is some more solid world building here, with esoteric descriptions the planet’s make up and industry. It moves along quickly, and picks up too much speed as global events unfold in rapid succession and the action is almost allegorical rather than described. This story was pretty good.

The last story is “A Gate in Darkness” by Paul R. McNamee, set on Pluto, of course. A broadly sketched tale with airships and imperial ambitions and spreading darkness and betrayals. There was nothing specific about this story being set on Pluto, though. It wasn’t even mentioned, which is a bit of contrast to the other stories; it could have been on any world anywhere, aside from Earth which is glimpsed in the titular Gate briefly. A decent tale, though.

Last in the anthology is the epilogue, after the Emissary has drained the dead captain of her knowledge and he reflects on the information. He brings his concerns to a trio of deity-like beings, and they see the handiwork of their ancient enemy in humanity, guiding it. They decide to end the threat, and the Emissary plots which world to destroy. This is either a set up for a sequel, or maybe an explanation for the asteroid belt (rather than the sister planet smacking Tharsia)?

In writing this review, I guess I liked the stories more on reflection than I did actually reading them. I had set the bar pretty high in my mind, being a fan of Sword and Planet, but there just ain’t no more Leigh Bracketts. That shouldn’t hurt my enjoyment of what is out there now. But while some of the stories were good, none struck me as being great.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts on this book. I think you’ll like it.

I’ll have another couple of posts soon. Hope you’re all well!

Richard L. Tierney passed away earlier this year. I was not really familiar with his work, despite having seen it and his name many times over the years. The main things I recalled him writing were a series of books featuring the Robert E. Howard/Roy Thomas character Red Sonja (written in collaboration with David C. Smith) and a series of fictional Sword & Sorcery stories about Simon Magus, who was a prophet figure around the same time as Jesus, mentioned in a couple of canonical Biblical texts. For some reason, I had never picked up any of this work, but his passing inspired me to pick up the collected short stories of Simon Magus (there are two novels, as well, I believe), called Sorcery Against Caesar.

I am about a third of the way through the collection, and dragging a bit. They are not bad stories, but I found the premise to be more interesting than the actual stories themselves, for the most part. My knowledge of early Christian history and Gnosticism specifically is rather sketchy, and Robert M. Price’s introduction to the volume is fascinating and eye-opening. He sets the stage for the stories, both from the historical perspective and the way it uses the Cthulhu Mythos as filtered through Derleth, and how it is re-distilled by Tierney. Derleth tried to tie the Mythos to Christianity; Tierney made it pre-Christian. Or something like that! I don’t think I have read an introduction to a collection of stories that has ever whetted my appetite as Price’s did.

So maybe it was inevitable that the stories have not lived up to my heightened expectations? At least, not yet. There are a couple of good ones early on, “The Fire of Mazda” and “The Seed of the Star-God,” but I had a few problems with each story and neither was great. “The Blade of the Slayer” actually features Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane, tying him into the Biblical narrative (there is overwhelming evidence in Wagner’s stories to Kane being the Caine of the Bible) with Magus, but it is not a particularly striking story. One that was co-written with Price, “The Throne of Achemoth,” is clever but on the boring side, despite the god-fight at the climax.

As I said, I’m only a third or so through it. I’m moving at a slow pace but I will definitely finish it. I may or may not do a full review, maybe just post some thoughts about key stories. I will say again that I really want to like these stories; the concept is very strong, and the historical and mystical background that Price contextualizes everything in is awesome. Maybe that’s the problem! Maybe I’ll appreciate the works more as I savor them with the incredible intro being a little more distant in my memory.

To those who might be raising their eyebrows at my mentioning Price favorably, I am well aware of the controversy he caused last year with his introductory screed to Flashing Swords #6. Maybe I’ll talk sometime about the points buried within it, but probably not. Any kind of thoughtful critique instead of blanket condemnation in these polarized times, in the sf/fantasy community as well as larger society, means that you are also the enemy. Suffice to say: this intro was good! Though devout Christians who are unwilling to suspend their belief for a few stories will probably find it problematic.

Anyway, I’ll have more to say on this collection in a week or two. I’ll have a post or three before then. Until then, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you are well!

So the seventh issue of TftMG arrived a couple of weeks ago. This is the first issue from the most recent Kickstarter, and the first to contain tales from their open call for submissions last year.

I’ll start off with my disappointingly regular complaint about typos. Some stories have more than others, as if some received better proofreading. Surely I am not the only one of the readers who wishes for better editing in this regard. The first story had three unsubtle errors that should have been caught. We are paying a premium price for the magazine. Can we please get an additional proofreader with a good grasp of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation to do a pass on each story before it is signed off on as ready? Yeah, that is harsh, but we’re paying for it to be done right; so why can’t it? It’s been seven issues now, Publisher Goodman and Editor Jones, and things are still somewhat slack on this front.

The cover is a pretty cool illustration from Sanjulian with a nice use of color. It reflects one of the stories, Beneath a Scarlet Moon. The magazine doesn’t always use a cover that is based on one of the stories contained in the issue, but I prefer it when it does, as opposed to some generic Swords & Sorcery-based cover. The illustration of the manticore does not match either the myth or the the story, though. The paper is still heavyweight stuff this issue, but the color is plain rather than parchment. This is explained as the printer did not have the regular paper due to the pandemic. Not a big deal. There is a brief editorial and then some remarks from the Skull. The main point worth mentioning here is the Skull’s enthusiasm for Dashiell Hammet. If you read my review of Red Harvest, you know I wholeheartedly agree.

Been busy doing nothing the last few weeks. In order to keep the little grey cells circulating, here’s a few reviews of some short stories I read recently.

The first is “The Toads of Grimmerdale” by Andre Norton. I wanted a palate cleanser after my ambivalent read of Quag Keep. This story came through in spades. It is set in her iconic Witch World, after a war that swept through the main continent after an invasion. The main character is a woman who was raped (bitterly, by one of her own countrymen rather than an invader) and turned out by her lordling brother as she refused to have the resulting pregnancy terminated. She has no skills to survive in the decimated land, but her drive is indomitable as she tries to chart a path for her unborn child, and take revenge on her unknown ravisher. She gets the opportunity for revenge through some malignant elder beings, and the story has tones of both Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith in addition to Norton’s own detailed voice. I won’t spoil anymore, as you should absolutely track it down and read it. The story was evidently written for Flashing Swords! #2, though it may have been in an earlier magazine. (Flashing Swords! was Lin Carter’s Swords & Sorcery anthology series from the early to mid 1970s). My copy of the story is in The Book of Andre Norton, published by DAW in 1975. It was also contained in The Many Worlds of Andre Norton, and also (I believe) The Lore of the Witch World.

Andre Norton was one of the most accomplished writers in the fantasy and science fiction fields in the 20th Century. She is kinda remembered now by the industry and fandom, but not like she should be. Her Witch World books are some of the best that our genre has ever produced, from plotting to characters to world-building.

I got this book for Christmas back in 1979 from my Dad (along with the game Wizard’s Quest). Dad was a long-time Norton fan, and he was tickled that she had written a book tied into D&D, which I was getting heavily into.

The backstory on this book is that Gygax invited Norton to play in a D&D session back in 1976, when the game was still new and wide open. She took some notes about her time in Greyhawk and wrote this novel based on the experience and wargaming (the term “role-playing game” was not widespread then) in general.

The book was the first to tie directly into D&D, though not wargaming as an in-book subject in fiction. That would be the Wargamers’ World/Magira series by German author and gamer Hugh Walker, which actually pre-dated Arneson’s Blackmoor as a campaign, and is deserving of its own post later.

I remember being kinda torn on the book, rather guiltily so because of Norton’s stature and how much Dad loved her. I never re-read the book, and my impressions and reasons for feeling mixed on it faded over the decades. I recently found my old copy, and it seemed like karma with the season being upon us. So I just read it for the first time in 42 years.

And I’m still mixed. She’s a master of her craft, and it is well-written, but it drags on and the ambiguity of its ending was unsatisfying. There is a lot to like, though.

Very simply, the plot involves people being drawn out of our world and into characters they have played in the world of Greyhawk. They don’t know why they have been thus summoned, and they get few answers from a wizard that recognizes what has happened to them and that it poses some threat to the reality of both worlds. The party of mismatched characters are put under a Geas to find the originator of this dire situation and make things right. The party goes on this compelled quest across plains and mountains and finally the Sea of Dust, ending in a magical quagmire and a mysterious tower. There they confront a dungeon master-like character.

The party is pretty cool, consisting of a swordsman (the viewpoint character), a berserker/wereboar with a pseudodragon companion, a battlemaiden, a cleric, a bard, an elf, and a lizardman. Norton really captured the diversity of adventuring party composition in the game, particularly in the free-wheeling elder days before the rules became codified as AD&D. Interestingly, there were unofficial bard and berserker classes published in Strategic Review/The Dragon at the time that Norton played with Gygax. Her description of the Berserker is in line with that published version of the class, including the ability to change into a boar at a certain level.

There are a lot of D&Disms, in particular the conflict between Law and Chaos. This was a staple of the early D&D game, as it had grown out of fantasy wargaming which usually featured armies of Law against the forces of Chaos. This was of course drawn from Moorcock, which was drawn from Poul Anderson (specifically Three Hearts And Three Lions). The conflict comes up often as the party – being of Law – tries to identify whether some of their opposition is serving Chaos.

Dragons show up of course, as both allies and enemies. There is a cool fight with an undead horde, which are called liches. A liche in D&D is a very powerful undead creature with spell-casting abilities; the description in the book of skeletal fighters is different from game-lore. There are a lot of places from the Greyhawk campaign referenced, besides the titular city and the Sea of Dust. Oddly, some are misspelled, like Geoff being referred to as Geofp in the book.

There is some reference to level titles, which were honorific titles given to characters as they advanced in power. “Swordsman” was the title for a third-level Fighting Man. “Initiate of the Third Circle” is the title given to the cleric Deav Dyne; this does not correspond to an official cleric level title, but does reference the level title for a 4th level Druid. There is a Druid character who is an enemy in the book (though it is never made clear why he serves the larger enemy), though it is pointed out he is not a servant of Chaos; Druids are Neutral of course, as is made plain in the text in a roundabout way.

So what gave me problems? Well, the pacing was rather plodding. The scenes in the city itself were cool, like the haggling in the horse market, and she really captured a seedy aspect of Greyhawk. The trek across the plains was rather drab (even though enlivened by an ambush) and the passage through the mountains was rather perfunctory. The elf of course found them a welcoming shelter his people had built under a big tree. The scene with the big dragon was not noteworthy, even allowing for another four decades of jadedness.

But the ambiguity of the ending, and therefore the whole story, left me tepid on the whole book. The whole bringing people into their characters is not explained, and the scene with the dungeon master is almost silly. The enemy and its nature are never explained. I get leaving things open so the reader can make their own interpretation. I get that having unresolved questions was a whole thing back in the 1970s; I remember a lot of it. I didn’t care for it then, or now, evidently. Was there ever really a firm idea in Norton’s mind as to why people were being brought out of our world to be placed in their characters in Greyhawk? It is not evident.

Maybe that is part of the point she wants to make in the story: what is real? Does the game take on a reality of its own? The last scene of Milo the swordsman rolling a die to determine their next action is metagamey and metafictiony, and kinda cool in that it tries to cut through, or rather dismiss, the ambiguity; but the lack of any real explanation as to who the enemy was (beyond an ill-described, semi-all-powerful dungeon master figure) and why this was being done is disappointing to me.

So: good and bad. I wish there was more clarity on just what the hell happened and why; but the characters were fine and some of the scenes were pretty cool.

There was a sequel that came out in 2006, just after Norton died. Evidently she had been writing it, and it was either in collaboration with Jean Rabe, or that author finished it upon Norton’s death. I have no idea what it is about, whether it features the same characters or tries to provide any answers, but I will probably try to pick it up.

On the whole, I’m glad I went back and read it. It wasn’t long, being under 200 pages, and it provides a fleeting glimpse of more open days of gaming.

Most importantly to me, as I read it I was taken back to reading it originally as a 13-year old kid, Christmas lights and the smell of cedar all over the house, Mom and Dad and my sister Kelly all gathered in the living room. Not what Norton intended to invoke, of course, but context always matters.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season with the people you love!

I wrote a couple of months ago after receiving this issue that I thought it contained some of the stories from the open call for submissions. I was wrong. Of course those submissions would not have been processed and evaluated before issue #6’s deadline. I should have cracked the cover before making such bold pronouncements. You know, basic research.

As it turns out, this issue has authors who have been published in the magazine before, plus the new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tale commissioned by the editor and publisher.

Let’s dig into the contents! For those new here, I try to be spoiler-free so you can go read and enjoy the stories without knowing their ending. Anything that I feel compelled to mention that rises to the level of spoiler (I place in parentheses like this).